Walton Purple Heart recipient was City Council member and advocate for veterans issues

WALTON – Lee Frakes, an inaugural member of the Kentucky Veterans Hall of Fame, died Sunday, according to Ruth Meadows, longtime Walton columnist for the Boone County Recorder.

"We were saddened to hear of the death of our World War II hero and good citizen Lee Frakes on Sunday. Lee was a staff sergeant, radioman/gunner B-17, Eighth Air Force" in World War II, Meadows wrote.

"Lee had served on Walton City Council and was very active in the Walton-Verona Veterans Memorial and the Purple Heart Memorial," she wrote.

According to a March 8, 2012, Boone County Recorder article, Mr. Frakes was in a group returning from a raid when the B-17 bomber they were flying was shot down near the French border around 10 a.m. on Feb. 8, 1943.

Mr. Frakes, 90, who had joined the Air Force shortly after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor, was on the plane. After a 2,000-mile journey, he made it back.

It was the first time Mr. Frakes had jumped out of a plane. When looking out to bail, Mr. Frakes said you don't see ground.

"All you can see (are) clouds because we were flying around 25,000 to 30,000 feet," he said.

He landed in Belgium, about five miles from the French border.

Mr. Frakes stayed there a day and a night before he saw an old man and a young boy walking down a path.

"The next morning they came back again," he said. "I came out and told them I was an American aviator and asked for help."

They went home, but returned later for Mr. Frakes. He stayed there until he healed.

According to Mr. Frakes, the farmer put him in touch with the French Underground who gave him a passport and a compass.

Mr. Frakes and a Canadian air pilot traveled across France and crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into Spain, a neutral country.

They were arrested by Spanish officials who got in touch with the American counsel who "got us out of there."

It took seven months to return to England. "Nobody knew where I was at," Mr. Frakes told the Recorder.

Once he was back in England, he was then able to find a way back to America.

Mr. Frakes was declared missing in action during this time.

When he called his wife to tell her he was home, Mr. Frakes' mother-in-law answered the phone and she fainted.

"I was dead up until that time," he said.

"There's a lot of things that happen during seven month that you don't like to talk about," he said in the 2012 interview. "They killed everybody in the front end of the plane. The first thing I had to do was make sure everybody was alive or dead." Mr. Frakes said he didn't just make the journey on foot – they stole bikes, old trucks and hopped freight trains and broke into shops to get supplies.

In recent years Mr. Frakes shared his war experiences with great pride and dignity to veterans' organizations and local entities, Meadows said, adding Mr. Frakes received many awards for his dedicated service. He was one of the first inductees into the Kentucky Veterans Hall of Fame in March 2014.

"He will be long remembered for his generosity to friends and family. Thanks Lee, for your honorable participation in the liberty we share today," Meadows said.